


The Angel Room: Journey to the Bunker

by CatherineinNB



Series: The Angel Room [13]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Blades (Supernatural), Canon Compliant, Episode: s14e10 Nihilism, Fights, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Led Zeppelin - Freeform, Season/Series 14, Season/Series 14 Spoilers, The Impala (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 13:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17829056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatherineinNB/pseuds/CatherineinNB
Summary: Set during the events of "Nihilism," Makael makes her way to the Bunker and deals with the fallout of Michael's re-possession of Dean.In other words, the one where Makael gets to drive Baby and fixes her tape deck, fights Dean, discovers that the Winchesters like fluffy towels and gets to try out Sam's shampoo, and makes a vow.Author's Note: It's been a while since I've posted, but this is a good long chunk of story to make up for it. Enjoy!





	The Angel Room: Journey to the Bunker

**Author's Note:**

> _**The Context:**_  
>  It all started as a way to stay connected. To know if and when it would be safe to return home.
> 
> She styled herself a journalist. An interviewer. A fangirl.
> 
> But for the seraph Makael, a refugee from _Supernatural_ ’s universe, _The Angel Room_ has become something much, much more.
> 
> Everything has changed.
> 
> Makael is no longer an angel who can stay safely on the sidelines. Not now. Not when she’s discovered just how much she _cares_.
> 
> If she’s honest with herself, she’s scared. She’s not sure if she’ll survive, now that she’s getting directly involved.
> 
> But she also knows this: she’s done with hiding.
> 
> And she’s ready to fight.

 

 ** _The Journey:_**  
As the smell of gasoline fills her nostrils, Makael reflects on the course of her life, and concludes that the last couple of hours may very well have been the most harrowing thus far.

There are many reasons for this sentiment, but it is due in no small part to the fact that she’s been driving Baby.

_Baby._

And she’s got over two more hours to go after this gas stop before she’ll arrive in Lebanon, Kansas.

She’d abandoned Father Jacob’s car about a mile out from Hitomi Plaza—after running into yet another blocked-off street filled with flashing lights—and left a note under the windshield, indicating to whom the car should be returned.

But there was no trace of Team Free Will 2.0 anywhere in the plaza, and a blood spell to search for them brought up nada.  
  
She didn’t know why the hell the Impala was still in the parking garage, sans Garth in the trunk. She hadn’t spotted any ash during her investigation of the twenty-sixth floor—which would’ve been all that was left of the team if Michael dusted them. So they weren’t dead, but they weren’t showing up with her locating spell … which meant they were someplace warded. And the most warded location on earth? The Bunker.  
  
She’d spent a long few minutes staring at the Impala before making her decision.

She had already found the keys Dean left under the car’s visor (when she thought Garth was still in the trunk). It had taken another few minutes of sitting in the driver’s seat, staring at the keyring in her hands, before Makael had finally gotten the gumption to slide the key into the ignition and turn it.

The resulting, purring rumble vibrated up through the seat. Makael had the wild, irrational thought that she’d woken a sleeping beast: a beast that wasn’t sure whether or not she liked Makael in the driver’s seat.

Makael had looked heavenward, letting out a shaky breath.

“Father,” she said quietly, “I haven’t asked anything of you in a very long time. And I know you probably don’t care about any of this. But if you do—if some part of you cares at all, even a little— _please_ help me not to wreck Dean’s car trying to get it back to him.”

Not that Dean was in any position to care about the Impala’s whereabouts, but …

It was the principle of the thing.

Squaring her shoulders, she’d adjusted the seat for her much-shorter-than-Winchester legs, tweaked the side and rearview mirrors, and carefully backed the car out of its parking spot.

She put it in drive, then stopped, realizing that she had no idea how to get from Kansas City to Lebanon. And she’d never bothered to own a cellphone in either universe, so Google Maps was out of the question.

Good thing she knew, based on Jack’s heaven-memory about their trip to Dodge City, that Dean still kept old-fashioned paper maps in the dash. Turns out having watched _Supernatural_ with a fan’s enthusiasm was actually very helpful when back in her own universe.

Ten minutes later she was pulling out of the parking garage and back onto the streets of Kansas City. Twenty minutes after that (thanks to a few more shut down streets and a few wrong turns) she was on the highway, heading toward Lebanon.

Every bump in the road during those first two hours made Makael cringe in her seat, every rattle had her checking to make sure something wasn’t coming loose and about to fall off the vehicle, and she’d held her breath every time she passed a slow-moving transport truck. The last thing she needed was a piece of debris kicked up by one of those behemoths cracking the windshield.

Two hours in, she realized that the tank was verging on empty, and was very grateful for the wad of cash she’d thought to stuff in the back pocket of her jeans. She still had bank accounts and cash stashed in various places here, but they would take a while to access, and American cash was American cash, regardless of which universe she was currently driving through.

That’s how she’d ended up currently in the Middle-Of-Nowhere, Kansas, with Baby’s rear license plate flipped down as she breathed in gasoline fumes.

Premium.

Nothing but the best for Baby.

The gas station is one of those little places that still trusts people to pay _after_ they pump.

As she grips the pump, Makael rolls her tension-tight shoulders, shifting from one foot to another to loosen her legs. Gas chugs steadily into the Impala’s tank.

When it’s full, Makael pays inside, heads back out, double-checks that the gas cap is tight, flips the license plate up into place, and gets into the car. The Impala rumbles back to life, and Makael’s about to put her in gear when her eyes fall on the collection of cassette tapes sitting on the floor of the passenger seat.

“Huh,” she says, and after a second, snags the box.

For the first time since stepping back into her own universe, she feels a thread of something other than worry and fear. It’s actually … thrilling to hold the box of Dean’s favorite music on her lap, to pull out individual tapes covered in his handwriting. She allows herself a brief moment of sheer, unadulterated fangirling as she realizes that yes, she really is sitting in the Impala, behind the _freaking wheel_ —and so she really, actually, truly, _gets to pick the music_.

She takes a breath, then gently pushes the selected tape into the deck. Zeppelin, for the full Impala experience.

And … nothing.

She frowns. Then, after a beat, she remembers the scene from “The Spear” in the recycling plant’s yard, and Castiel mentioning that the tape deck was broken.

“Shit.”

She puts the Impala in gear, but instead of pulling out onto the road, she rolls her over to a dark corner of the blacktop and parks. She slips the knife from her boot and makes a short, shallow cut on her palm, then dips her pinky finger in the wound and paints some small symbols in her own blood over the tape deck.

She came up with this handy-dandy little spell about a year after the Fall, when she had settled into a small duplex, and her garage door opener stopped working: a self-repair spell for electrical items. It only worked on small things, and sometimes it was a straight-up dud, but there’s no harm in trying. The spell saved her quite a tidy sum in repair jobs—after all, electricity is just energy, and so is magic. So, if the failure in Baby’s tape deck is electrical rather than mechanical in nature, this just might work.

And, unlike the black leather seats that Dean always worries about so much, blood will wipe off the tape deck just fine.

A pang hits her, hard, seemingly out of nowhere. She’s been doing her best during the long drive to Lebanon not to think about what Dean must be going through right now, trapped by Michael in his own body. But she’s surrounded by everything that’s quintessentially Dean. Even though she’s never been in the Impala before, she’s ridden in it with the Winchester boys hundreds of times as she’s watched _Supernatural_. The memories that fill the space aren’t her own, but they have an emotional resonance as if they were.

She swallows hard, and focuses on the task at hand.

A soft chant of Enochian, a brief flare of reddish-orange light where the symbols are painted, and the tape deck clicks on. A fraction of a second later, and sound is coming through the speakers, halfway through a song:

_… like the way ya hold the road /_ _Mama, it ain't no sin //_ _Talkin’ ‘bout love /_ _I'm talkin’ ‘bout love /_ _I'm talkin’ ‘bout //_ _Ooh, trouble-free transmission /_ _Helps your oil flow /_ _Mama, let me pump your gas /_ _Mama, let me do it all //_ _Talkin’ ‘bout love, ah—_

Makael breaks into a grin of triumph, which quickly morphs into one of appreciation as she tilts her head to listen to the lyrics. Talk about the perfect track for this moment.  
She carefully cleans away all traces of blood from the tape deck. A minute later, she’s peeling back onto the road, toward the highway.

This time, however, her hand is tapping the steering wheel, and her low, sweet voice is improvising a harmony.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It’s still night when Makael pulls onto the service road that runs along the river, which flows black and quiet along her left.

_… Ah, sometimes I grow so tired /_ _But I know I’ve got one thing I gotta do //_ _Ramble on /_ _And now’s the time, the time is now /_ _To sing my song /_ _I’m goin’ ‘round the world …_

“Really?” Makael arches her brows at the tape deck as the tenor voice croons and rasps through speakers. She halts her humming as the car growls its way down the dark road, its headlights illuminating the way ahead of her. “A bit much with the meta, isn’t it?”

If she didn’t know better, she’d think this moment is scripted.

She turns off the music.

Ahead, on the steep embankment to her right, a huge building looms against the night sky, its stacks a deeper set of shadows in the darkness. Makael breathes out, slowly, feeling the tension returning to her shoulders. For better or for worse, she’s here. She’s fairly certain the Winchesters can’t have beaten her to the Bunker by much—and if that’s the case, it’s likely they are still trying to get into Michael’s mind with the British Men of Letters’ rig. In which case she might still be of some use.

The Impala rumbles to a halt in front of the Bunker’s main entrance. Makael puts her in park and turns off the headlights. With a slow exhale, she shuts off the lovely grumble of the engine. Remaining seated, she goes quiet herself, and uses her heightened angelic senses to search the surrounding area carefully. She hasn’t forgotten about the glimpses from the preview of monsters attacking the Bunker. With Michael’s grace in them, however, she should be able to sense the presence of any of his minions nearby.

She picks up nothing, and relaxes a fraction. She takes the keys out of the ignition, and casts her gaze around the interior of the Impala one more time.

“Thanks for getting me here, Sweetheart,” she murmurs, and opens the door, her fingertips lingering lightly on the steering wheel as she exits.

She grabs her machete and angel blade from the trunk. As she makes her way down the concrete steps to the main entrance, she pulls out a key from the back pocket of her jeans, where it’s been nestled safely beneath the remaining wad of cash. Ketch gave it to her at the end of their last training session: _In case you ever need a hiding place on_ our _earth, love_. His lips had turned up a fraction at the corners as he pressed the cool metal into her palm: a positively radiant smile for Ketch. She smiles herself at the memory as she looks down at the key. A duplicate of his own, it will open any Men of Letters lair in the world.

A few moments and a blood-spell later, and she’s got the access she needs to get past the Bunker’s angel-proofing. She steps past the threshold and closes the door firmly behind her, then makes her way down the twisting metal staircase to the Bunker proper.

The key opens this door, too.

It still groans. She shakes her head and decides to have a serious conversation with Sam Winchester about WD-40.

Inside, the Bunker is silent, and she can see that the library is empty. No Sam or Cas or Michael. No British Men of Letters rig humming away in the background.

Quietly, Makael draws her machete.

Her feet are light on the steps as she makes her way down to the main level, scanning the space as she goes. Faintly, she can sense Castiel’s presence. Hope surges in her chest. If Castiel is here … that means they’ve survived.

She hasn’t allowed herself before now to consciously examine the fear that they hadn’t made it, but that fear sat heavily at the back of her mind during the entire drive from Kansas City.

When her feet hit the concrete floor of the War Room, however, she still hasn’t picked up any trace of Michael, which has her worried. He’s so powerful that she should be able to sense him, now that she’s inside the Bunker.

And then she catches movement in the peripheral vision to her right, and Michael strolls through the door to the kitchen.

Icy cold washes down the length of Makael’s body in a drenching wave.

She has time to see him widen his eyes—Dean Winchester’s green eyes—and feels a flash of pure rage at that: at the complete and utter invasion he’s made of Dean’s body. Then she’s reacting, pivoting to face him as she raises her right hand and swings the machete toward his throat in a smooth, horizontal arc.

If possible, those green eyes get even wider, and then Michael is ducking and throwing himself backwards, a startled whoosh of air escaping his lips. The blade whines harmlessly through the air instead of severing his head from his shoulders.

Makael snarls in frustration.

 _If you ever have the misfortune of coming face-to-face with Michael,_ Ketch told her, _run. But if you can’t, the element of surprise will be your best advantage. He won’t expect a member of the choir to fight him. So you fight like hell. Surprise will be your_ only _advantage against Michael. Once you lose that, it’s over._

There’s nowhere for Makael to run, not with him this close. So she advances, sending Michael stumbling back into the kitchen in an effort to stay out of the reach of her long blade.

It’s not like the blade will kill him, but she figures with his head unattached from his body, it’ll slow him down for a couple of minutes.

And then she _will_ run like hell.

Of course, not in the direction Ketch would necessarily want her to. She’ll be running to find the others, to try to get them to safety.

She has a sneaking suspicion, though, that these days? If Ketch were in her place, he’d run in the same direction.

Michael is still backing up, and she’s pressing him hard. But when he reaches the kitchen table, he starts throwing things, and while she’s ducking he has time to snag two large kitchen knives from the block on the stainless steel counter, putting the island between them.

She vaults it.

The surprise flashes across his face again, and then his expression closes off as they meet, going blank with focus and concentration. Her machete snicks harmlessly off the metal of one of the kitchen knives as he raises it to block her downward stroke, and then he’s slashing toward her chest with the other one.

The Winchesters certainly know how to keep their kitchen knives sharp. She’s able to arch herself backward enough that the blade doesn’t go deep, but it whispers effortlessly through the cotton of her t-shirt, just below her collar bone, and for a fraction of a second the long line in the flesh beneath it doesn’t even hurt. It’s only when the blood springs forth that she feels the sting. But by that time she’s ducked low and rolled out of reach.

She springs lightly to her feet, and takes a page from Michael’s book, throwing a beer bottle that’s been abandoned on the table. But instead of retreating as it smashes against his right hand, sending an explosion of glass through the air and knocking the knife from his grasp, she rushes him.

He’s fast. He catches the motion and anticipates her move, grabbing her wrist as she brings the blade down in an arc toward him, and using her momentum to swing her back in the direction she came from. His follow-up kick to her sternum has the air rushing from her lungs, and she hits the ceramic tiles of the wall hard, smacking her head so hard that her vision momentarily blurs.

Before she can react, the machete is wrenched from her hand and his other blade is at her throat.

“Don’t move,” he grinds out.

She stares at him in silent hatred, swallowing hard as everything comes back into sharp focus. She reaches for the angel blade, but he beats her to it, yanking it out from where it’s wedged in the waistband of her jeans and tossing it so it clatters across the tiled floor. The pressure of the blade against her throat increases, and she again feels the delayed sting as blood wells. Warmth slides down her skin.

She forces herself to relax, closes her eyes.

_I tried._

After the lengths she’d gone to originally to hide from Michael, she feels the irony of dying at his hands … deeply.

But she can’t find it in her to feel regret.

She hears the rush of feet pounding down the hallway in her direction, feels Castiel drawing closer, and opens her eyes again. Michael’s expression isn’t what she expected. She _expected_ cold, calculating … triumphant. What she sees is utter confusion. She swallows hard.

“Don’t hurt them,” she asks softly.

“What?”

“Don’t hurt Sam and Castiel.” She doesn’t care if her voice is pleading.

“Why would I—” Michael frowns, but Sam and Castiel are bursting through the entrance to the kitchen, weapons drawn.

“Dean!” exclaims Sam, his face taut with concern.

“What’s going on?” Castiel comes to a halt beside him, his angel blade gripped firmly in his right hand, raised to attack. Then his gaze falls on Makael, and his blue eyes widen. “Makael?”

Everything’s happening so quickly, but Michael hasn’t turned them to ash, and they aren’t attacking him, and Sam just said—

“Oh my God,” whispers Makael, turning her gaze back to the man standing before her. “Dean?” For the first time she draws upon her secondary sight, her angelic sight, and that confirms it. “Oh my God,” she says again.

A dozen expressions flit across his face, the last of them being relief. “Yeah.” He shakes his head, his shoulders sagging. “You done trying to kill me?”

“What?” exclaims Sam, his gaze darting between them, and then taking in the wreckage of the kitchen.

“I thought you were Michael,” she says, a pit opening up in her stomach.

“I kinda figured,” says Dean. He’s breathing hard and his brow is sheened with perspiration. “Am I good to stop holding a blade to your throat now?”

Makael blinks. “Yes. Yes! Shit. Shit-shit- _shit_. Dean, I—”

He gives her a tight smile. “You thought I was Michael. Yeah, I get it.” He removes his hand from her chest, which she hadn’t even realized was there until the pressure pushing her against the wall is gone. Then he straightens and pulls away the knife. He tosses it with a clatter onto the island.

Silence descends upon the kitchen as the four of them stare at each other.

“What the fuck is going on?” asks Sam, finally. When nobody answers, he goes on. “Makael, you look like hell. And did—were you just _fighting_ Dean?”

“Yeah, and doing a helluva job of it.” Dean retreats to the far wall, leans a hip against the counter. “She almost took my head off. Literally.” His voice manages to be wry, even though he looks bone-weary.

Sam’s eyes fall on the machete that’s still lying in the middle of the floor. “Holy shit,” he mutters. “Since when can you fight?”

Before she can reply, she hears lighter footsteps tearing down the hall, and Jack appears in the kitchen’s entrance. “I was at the far end of the Bunker,” he explains breathlessly. “I heard a fight?” His eyes fall on Makael, and they light up. “Makael!” he exclaims, warmly. “What are you doing here?” And then, as he takes her in more thoroughly, he says, “You’re injured.”

“Yes, and some of these injuries are hours old,” says Castiel, his brow furrowed. He tilts his head. “And, if I’m not mistaken, much of the blood isn’t your own.”

Makael frowns, then catches her reflection in the metallic surface of the island.  
She _does_ look like hell. The right side of her face is black and purple from a blow landed by one of the werewolves. There’s fresh blood still trickling from the wound in her neck, and more soaking through the slice Dean made in her t-shirt. One sleeve is in ribbons—she must’ve got clawed in the cathedral. Dried blood coats her upper arm. The sleeve of her t-shirt is crusty with it, and the wounds are still seeping. She hadn’t even really noticed until now, other than feeling the dull ache in her deltoid. The rest of her—jeans, boots, shirt—is spattered with gore, including rusty spots and smears across her face, and the tracks left behind from old tears.

No wonder the guy behind the cash register went pale when she went to pay for Baby’s gas.

She runs a hand through her disheveled hair, smoothing it down—it’s the only thing she can really do at the moment. She sighs.

“I was in Kansas City,” she says. “I fought a bunch of Michael’s wolves. Then I tried to find you at Hitomi Plaza. When I couldn’t, I drove straight here.”

“… and fought Dean.” Sam’s looking at her like she has two heads.

She shrugs. “I lost.”

“Barely,” grunts Dean from his spot by the counter.

“How many werewolves?” asks Jack. His voice sounds … awed. And that makes Makael deeply uncomfortable. He doesn’t know that most of those wolves were innocents, just victims under Michael’s control. She feels sick thinking about it.

She looks away. “It doesn’t matter.” She looks at Dean. “What happened with Michael? How did you get rid of him?”

Dean grimaces. “We didn’t,” he says. He taps his head lightly. “He’s still in here. We just … trapped him.”

Makael stares for a second in silent shock. “How did you—”

“Look, we all have a lot of questions. But you’re still bleeding and … I need a beer. Sammy, can you show her where she can go get cleaned up? And … I dunno, does anyone have any clothes that might kinda sorta fit her?” He frowns as he looks her up and down. “You’re so _tiny_.”

Makael tries to muster the energy to feel offended at that, but fails. She wouldn’t categorize her vessel as tiny—its curves belie that—but it is rather short. Especially compared with the Winchesters.

“I’ve got some clothes that might work,” offers Jack. “I’ll go grab them.” He disappears into the hallway.

Sam gives Dean a long look, then nods. “Come on, Makael. The showers are this way.”

There’s silence as Makael and Sam start side by side down the hallway. She can feel Sam glancing down at her, feel him reassessing her, feel the questions brewing.  
“I’m sorry. If I knew it was Dean, I wouldn’t have—”

“No, no—I get that,” interjects Sam, his brow furrowed. “I’m just not sure _how_ you just nearly took my brother’s head off. Last I heard, you weren’t a soldier.”

She slants a glance up at him. “I asked Ketch to teach me how to fight.”

Sam’s eyebrows raise so high that they nearly meet his hairline. “Ketch.” He frowns. “ _Arthur Ketch_ has been training you?”

“Yes.”

“How long has that been happening?”

“Since I met with Castiel.”

There’s a pause. Then, “Huh.”

Makael shrugs. “He says I’m a quick study.”

Sam snorts. “I’d say that’s an understatement.”

Makael looks up at him again, her shorter legs having to work to keep pace with his long strides. “Yeah?”

“Uh, yeah. You just gave Dean a run for his money. That’s … unusual. Even for an angel.”

“Well, I thought he was Michael. And Ketch said that if I ever ran into Michael, the only thing I’d have going for me was the element of surprise. So, I tried to keep him off-balance. That’s all.”

“Right,” says Sam, still looking down at her like he’s never seen her before. “Sure. That’s all.” There’s another pause, and then, “Why didn’t you ask any of us to train you?”

Makael gives him a wry look. “I’ve seen the way you three are with Jack. How … careful you are. I didn’t have time to be eased into all of this.” She waves her hands expansively as they make their way around a bend in the hallway. “And I knew that if he decided to help, Ketch would be practical about it.”

“You mean brutal,” says Sam coolly.

“It’s not like Michael’s monsters would take it easy on me. And besides—when, exactly, would you three have time to train me? You’re already training Jack, and have been hunting Michael, _and_ acclimating the AU hunters.”

Sam purses his lips. “Fair point. But when has _Ketch_ had time to train you? I mean, he’s been all over the place looking for the Egg.”

“I go to him,” she replies, succinctly.

“In Hungary?”

“All over. But yeah. I made the spell he used to sedate those rottweilers. Gentler on their tummies than drugs, and more reliable.”

“Huh,” says Sam again, shaking his head, but they’re at the shower room, which cuts off further conversation on the topic. “Uh, so there’s soap and shampoo and stuff in the shower, and towels are over here.” He grabs a pair of towels, which are … fluffy. Makael’s never consciously thought about it before, but she somehow didn’t expect the Winchesters to care about the fluffiness of towels. Something about this unexpected detail is … delightful. A smile ghosts across her face as she accepts the towels from Sam’s large hands.

She sobers as she looks up at him, however. “Sam? I know you’ll all fill me in with all the details later, but … is Dean okay?”

His inquiring expression has faltered by the time she’s reached the end of her sentence, and the creases between his brows are prominent. “No,” he says, slowly. “I don’t think he is. What we did? It’s a temporary solution and … it’s a lot for him to carry, Makael.”

She lets out a breath and nods, taking that in. But before she can say anything, Jack appears in the doorway.

He holds out a pile of clothing for her, which she accepts as he awkwardly dumps them on top of the towels. “These should fit,” he says, nodding to the grey sweatpants and navy-blue henley. He adds, apologetically, “I don’t wear bras, though.”

Sam lets out a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a cough, and scrubs a hand over his face to cover his smile.

Makael feels herself turning slightly pink—which startles her a bit, since blushing is typically a human function rather than an angelic one. But she smiles at Jack, who’s frowning in confusion. “I’ll get by until the one I’m wearing now can be washed. Thanks, Jack.”

“You’re welcome.” He returns her smile, and his eyes are bright. “Are you going to be staying with us now?”

Makael glances at Sam, then shakes her head. “Just until the artifact I use to power the portals recharges. Sorry, kiddo.”

His face falls, slightly, but he nods. “I understand.”

God, he’s such a sweet kid. Makael wants to hug him, but she’s covered in crusty dried blood, and the Winchesters tend not to hug unless there’s some kind of crisis. So she just gives him her warmest smile, and glances at the shower.

“Let’s let her get cleaned up, Jack,” says Sam, catching her glance.

A moment later, and she’s got the room to herself.

Makael doesn’t shower often. As an angel, she doesn’t really have to. Her angelic mojo keeps it clean. But right now, her grace is running low, and she needs to use what she has to heal herself. She takes a breath as she stands in front of the mirror, having carefully deposited the towels and clothes next to the shower stall, and lets the golden glow of healing light up her palm. She places her hand over the right side of her face, speeding the process for healing from the contusion and bruising there. When she removes her hand, there’s still some traces of green bruising, but the area it covers is greatly reduced, and the inflammation is gone. She moves to trace a finger over the shallowest cut, the one on her throat. It takes longer for the slice below her collar bone, and longest still to heal the multiple deep wounds on her left bicep. By the time she’s done, she’s swaying, and has to grip the sink to maintain her balance.

“Keep it together,” she mutters, breathing deeply.

A minute later, and she’s standing under a stream of warm water, mentally agreeing with Dean that, yes, they really _do_ have nice water pressure here. She can feel her tense muscles finally start to relax—that is, until she notices the steady stream of reddish-brown curling down the drain, and remembers Castiel’s words: _If I’m not mistaken, much of the blood isn’t your own._

Viscerally, she sees the girl from the church in her mind’s eye, screaming and snarling as she attacks. “Karen,” she whispers forcefully. “Her name was Karen.” She sees Karen’s yellow-green eyes turn human even as the spark of life fades from them. Sees them go dull as blood pools thick on the floor beneath her decapitated head.

For a moment she can’t breath.

When she’s able to shake free of the memory, two of her knuckles are split open and one of the shower’s tiles is cracked.

“Dammit.” The word comes out in a hiss as she shakes her stinging hand.

She really needs to talk to Ketch about that feelings box. She _can’t_ be doing it right.

A few minutes later she’s padding back down the hall toward the kitchen, smelling distinctly of the Winchesters’ soap, and of Sam’s shampoo and conditioner. Jack’s sweatpants are _very_ snug through the hips, and a little long, so she’s rolled up the pant legs a couple of times. But they fit. The navy blue henley fits better. She’s washed her bra in the sink and gotten it as clean as she can. It’s hanging to dry with her towels in the shower room.

As she makes her way back around the bend in the hall, the tile floor cool beneath her bare feet, a corner of her brain decides, with startling firmness, that smelling like Sam Winchester is not unpleasant. She files that away for consideration at a later date.

She finds Sam in the kitchen, rooting around in the fridge. He turns at the sound of her approach and tosses a smile in her direction, but there’s exhaustion in his eyes. “Dean’s turned in for the night, and Cas is … checking Jack. I’ll explain in a second. Wanna beer?”

“Alcohol doesn’t affect me,” says Makael, tilting her head in confusion.

Sam gives a sudden laugh, his expression clearing like momentary sunshine as he does so. “You know, most angels are …” He shakes his head. “But you and Cas? There are moments where it’s eerie. I mean, you look nothing alike, but …” He chuckles and straightens, holding two beers in one hand and closing the fridge with the other.

Makael frowns. “I don’t follow.”

“Of course you don’t. Come on.” He beckons her, and she trails after him to the library. He puts the beers down on the table closest to the War Room and pops the caps off, then slides wearily into the chair on the far side of the table from Makael. He pushes the other beer toward her. “Have a seat, have a beer. Just FYI, if you drink enough, you _can_ get drunk. Cas has managed it a couple of times. Not from just one beer,” he adds as she sits and gives the beer a suspicious look. “But he still enjoys one with us now and then. If you don’t like it, I’ll finish it.” He reaches across the table, tilting his bottle towards her. “Cheers,” he says, wryly.

Makael hesitates, then picks up her beer and echoes the motion. Sam clinks the neck of his bottle against hers, then takes a long swig. She takes a tentative sip.

It tastes terrible.

She plasters a smile on her face, but Sam takes one look at her and chuckles. “Yeah, I felt the same way when I had my first sip. It grows on you.”

“That seems … improbable,” she says, but she takes another sip to be polite. She keeps hold of the bottle and focuses her attention back on him. “Sam, tell me what happened. Please?”

Sam rubs his forehead, his mouth twisting. “Right. Yeah. Well—”

There’s a long silence when he’s done, and they’re both on their second beers. Somehow she’s managed to drink one and a half without even really tasting any of it, she’s been listening so intently.

“So … Michael is trapped in a cold room in Dean’s mind, which is being held shut by an icepick,” says Makael finally, working hard to keep her voice neutral.

“Yup,” says Sam, and she can hear just how unhappy he is with this arrangement in that one-syllable word.

“And Jack burned off part of his soul keeping all of you safe from Michael’s monsters while you were under.”

Sam shifts in his seat. “Yeah.”

“Which is what Castiel was checking earlier—seeing how much of his soul is intact,” says Makael quietly. They’re in the kitchen now, and she can hear the murmur of their voices: Jack’s is low and sullen; Castiel’s is alternating between concern and warmth.

Sam nods, takes a swig of his beer. “I think you’ve got the gist of it all,” he says, with forced lightness.

“I don’t know how you guys do this all the time,” says Makael, after a pause.

Sam gives a mirthless laugh. “Honestly? I don’t know, either,” he says.

Makael gives him a long look. “You’ve got him back,” she says, softly. “You’ve bought yourselves time to find a better solution, and he’s _here_. Now. Because of what the three of you did to save him. Hold onto that.”

There’s so much pain and relief and weariness in Sam’s eyes when he looks at her that Makael’s heart constricts in her chest, but before she can say anything, Castiel’s heavy footsteps are approaching. He pulls up a chair next to Sam.

“How’d the chat with Jack go?” asks Sam.

Castiel shakes his head. “I don’t think he fully understands why we’re all so upset about it,” he says. “It may help if you talk with him, Sam. You’ve lived without a soul. You know just how bad it can get.”

“Yeah, thanks for that reminder, Cas.” Sam softens his words with a smile as he shakes his head. “I’ll do that. Tomorrow. I think I’m done for tonight.” He tips the rest of his beer back, his throat moving smoothly as he swallows the rest of it down. “You done with yours?” he asks Makael.

She looks at the bottle, then mimics his action, chugging the rest of the beer. If she doesn’t focus on the taste, the smooth coolness of it going down her throat is pleasant. She tells him that. He shakes his head and chuckles as he takes the empty from her and pads back to the kitchen.

“How _is_ Jack’s soul?” she asks Castiel, once he’s gone.

He sighs. “I’m not sure,” he says. “I checked, and if he was a normal human, I think it’d be fine—I mean, yes, he definitely did burn some of it off, but it’s not a huge amount. But he’s not a normal human, so I’m not sure how this will affect him in the long term.”

Makael nods. “You’ll keep a close eye on him?”

Castiel’s smile is weary, but affectionate. “Of course, Sister.”

“Thank you.” She feels a happy warmth at the appellation. She hasn’t realized until now how much she missed hearing it from other angels.

“Mm. How about you tell me about how you’ve suddenly turned yourself into a warrior?” There’s amusement in his tone, but it’s laced with genuine curiosity and not a little respect.

She tells him. He’s not thrilled about Ketch’s involvement—he seems to hold Ketch in a sort of general disdain, which Makael finds herself … saddened by. She has come to genuinely like Ketch, although she understands her brother’s reservations.

“Castiel,” she says, after she’s told him everything, “I … I have found myself struggling with something. Ketch told me that to fight, I need to put my emotions into a box, and then examine them later. But I find that they’re … not staying _in_ the box. The first werewolf I killed? I didn’t enjoy it. It was … messy. But he’d _chosen_ to sign up for Michael’s army. The others he turned? They hadn’t. They were victims. And now, Sam tells me that as soon as Dean locked up Michael in his head, the army just … stopped. If I had just … tied them up somewhere and left them someplace safe, like you did with Garth, they—”

“No, Makael.” Castiel’s shaking his head, started shaking it towards the end of her words. “You can’t second-guess yourself like that. Michael would have told them angels can’t be turned. You might have managed to contain some of them, but it’s unlikely that you could have gotten all of them—not with them attacking you, not without putting yourself at grave risk. They would have killed you if you’d given them a chance. And any that escaped would have turned more people before we were able to get Dean free. They _would_ have made more victims. Maybe dozens more. You saved a lot of people a lot of suffering tonight.”

Makael takes a breath, and exhales slowly as she considers his words. “The logic of your argument makes sense, Brother,” she says finally. “But … I don’t feel any better. Why is that?”

Castiel gives a dry chuckle. “That would be you feeling humanity’s influence,” he says.

“Ultimately, it’s good to be able to feel things. But it’s … an adjustment, certainly.”

“I don’t think I’m adjusting very well.”

Castiel’s blue eyes are full of understanding as he reaches across the table. He grips her hand gently and briefly before he settles back in his seat. “I don’t think any of us adjust to feeling things … gracefully. But we do adjust. And it’s better that we do, than to keep ourselves shut off from humanity’s influence. In the long run, we are better for it.” He ducks his head slightly, making sure she is making eye contact with him. “I’m very proud of you, Makael. You’ve come a very long way in a very short amount of time.”

“You inspired me,” she says simply.

They exchange a smile, and then suddenly she’s yawning. Her eyes open wide in surprise at the involuntary action. Castiel frowns, and his blue eyes go slightly unfocused as he _looks_ at her with angelic sight.

“Your grace is remarkably depleted,” he says, leaning forward, his expression full of concern. “I don’t understand. It shouldn’t be.”

Makael finds herself flushing again, like she did earlier in the bathroom. She realizes, with a start, that she’s used up so much of her grace that her vessel’s humanity is asserting itself over her angelic nature. “I … I’ve been draining and storing some of my grace because I discovered that it can recharge the artifact I use to power the portals. I wanted to have it available in case of emergency. I used a lot trying to figure out how to help you and Sam and Jack after I saw the episode—jumping here and back. And then I used more to get you out, and to power the spell for the cuffs, and to open a way to the cathedral. And then I fixed Baby’s tape deck on the way here.” Which felt like a century ago now.

Castiel blinks. “You drove Dean’s car here?” She realizes that he’s using the same carefully neutral tone she used earlier with Sam.

“Yes. She’s fine. She’s parked out front. And I fixed the tape deck for him. I thought he’d appreciate it.”

Castiel gives a non-committal nod, pressing his lips together. His eyes are … wide.

“I took a defensive driving class after we Fell,” she says, to reassure him.

His expression doesn't change.

Makael sighs, and moves on. “And then—”

“—and then you healed yourself.” He shakes his head. “No wonder you’re edging on human.”

Makael swallows. “This has never happened to me before. Has it happened to you?”

“In the past? Almost never. These days? Yes. A few times.” Castiel's voice is grim, and she knows in that moment that he's felt it, too: the gradual diminishing of their powers and strength since the Fall. It happened almost infinitesimally at first, but in recent years it’s become more and more noticeable.

“What should I do?” She hates hearing the fear in her voice.

Castiel lets out a huff of air, and gives her a reassuring smile. “You should rest. Resting your vessel will speed the regeneration of your grace.” At her expression, he continues, “It’s less disconcerting than you’d think. When I was fully human, I slept for hours at a time. The most I’ve needed recently is … a power nap, I think is what Dean would call it.” He gives her a quick once over. “You are clothed appropriately for resting. Comfortable clothes can help with the process. We have a spare bedroom you can use to lie down.”

She wants to protest, but Castiel’s expression is so kind that she finds the protest dying on her lips. He rises to his feet. “Come, Sister. I’ll show you where it is.”

The room is nondescript, as all the bedrooms in the Bunker tend to be.

“I can tuck you in, if you’d like,” says Castiel from the doorway as she regards the twin bed with suspicion. “I read many books on child-rearing when Kelly and I were waiting for Jack’s arrival, and they agreed that the ritual of tucking children in can allay anxiety about sleep and bedtime.”

“Thank you,” says Makael. “I think I’ll be fine. It’s just a state of unconsciousness, after all.” But she appreciates his offer more than he can know.

Castiel nods. “Sweet dreams,” he says.

“Do you think I will? Dream, that is?” she asks him, curiously.

“Dreams tend to happen with some unpredictability,” says Castiel, sagely. “It’s impossible to say.”

Later, Makael categorizes the process of falling asleep as “unsettling.” It’s as if some outside force is taking over, dragging awareness out of her and making her limbs heavy and slow to respond to her commands. She schools herself to stop fighting the sensation. It’s a natural process, and her vessel survived it thousands of times before she took over.

She closes her eyes.

The last conscious thought she has is how nice Sam’s shampoo smells in her hair.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Makael sits bolt upright in bed, breathing hard.

It takes a moment for her to orient herself, to realize that she’d been sleeping.

“How on earth do humans manage it every day?” she whispers to the empty room.

After a moment, she realizes that _something_ woke her. A deep sense of unease has settled into her belly, and it’s more than a reaction to being unconscious for the first time in her existence. She throws back the covers and swings her legs over the edge of the mattress. The tiles are cool under her feet, and she shivers. She registers the shiver with mild annoyance. She must still need more rest, if her body is sensitive to minor changes in temperature like this.

A moment later, she’s standing in the entrance to her room, casting out her angelic senses to determine what woke her. She hears a murmur of voices from somewhere nearby, so quiet that if she were human, her ears wouldn’t register the sound. One she recognizes as Dean’s low grumble. The other …

Her eyes widen, and she’s running.

Death—this Death—hasn’t often been a friend of the Winchesters.

As she rounds a corner, she hears Dean say, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

A low, rich female voice responds, “That’s up to you.”

She skids to a stop outside a door marked with the number eleven. She knocks. “Dean?”

There’s a long silence. The door opens.

Dean has the look of a man whose entire existence has just been ripped out from under him.

She has an odd moment of wondering how he is standing.

“I heard her,” she says. “I heard Death. What was she doing here?”

He swallows, then pulls her into the room and closes the door behind her. “You can’t tell _anyone_. Promise me, Makael. Not Sam, not Cas, not Jack.”

She stares. “What did she say?”

“ _Promise me_.”

She’s seen a lot of fans swoon over the glare that Dean fixes upon her now.

They’re all insane, she decides. She finds herself wishing for the first time in a long time that she still has her wings, just so she could disappear and escape it.

“I promise,” she says. She’s both pleased that she manages to speak, and irritated that the words come out at a higher pitch than her normal voice, betraying just how intimidating that look is.

He holds the glare for another moment, as if to impress just how serious her promise is. Then he turns and grabs what looks like a slim, nondescript black journal. When her fingers brush its surface as he offers it to her, however, she can feel Death’s power radiating from it.

She snatches her fingers away as if it’s burned her, and shakes out her hand as tingles run up the length of her arm and down to her toes.

Dean frowns. “What was that about?” he asks.

Sometimes Makael forgets just how insensible humans can be to the supernatural.

She sighs. “Nothing—just, Death’s fingerprints are all over that thing,” she says, reaching for it again. She opens to the first page and starts reading.

After the first few sentences, she looks up at Dean. His face is inscrutable, his green eyes blank of any emotion. She bites her lower lip, takes a seat in the long, benchlike chair that’s shoved up against the wall to the right of the bed, and keeps reading.

By the time she’s done, Dean’s taken a seat opposite her on his mattress. Their gazes meet, and he scrubs a hand wearily over his face. Makael swallows.

“But this is just one of many ways—” she begins, but he’s already shaking his head.

“Not anymore. Billie says everything’s … changed. Every single one of my books says the same thing: Michael escapes my head, and he burns the world.” Dean’s voice is flat. “The _entire freaking world_ , Makael. This is the only book that says anything different. The _only_ one.”

Makael blinks, and the tears that have started to brim spill over and run down her cheeks. “Shit,” she whispers.

Dean lets out a huff of air, looks heavenwards for a moment before focusing back on her. “Yeah, pretty much,” he says. He gives her a lopsided smile that doesn’t meet his eyes.

“You know anything about these Ma’lak boxes?”

Makael bites the inside of her cheek to steady herself. She swallows and clears her throat. “Uh, yeah. The magic in it is really similar to what makes the Cage work, and Heaven’s jail cells are built along a similar set of specifications. But where the Cage and Heaven’s jail were built by God himself, anyone can build a Ma’lak box. They’re the strongest magical container in the world. Thousands of times stronger than holy fire, or an Enochian puzzle box.”

Dean nods. “Okay.” His eyes go unfocused for a moment, and she wonders what he is thinking about.

“Are you going to do it?” she asks finally, her voice thready in the quietness of the room.

He comes back to himself. “I don’t think I have much of a choice,” he says. “Mak—hey, do you mind if I call you Em?”

“Like, short for Emily?”

“No, like your initial. I just … your name’s a bit of a mouthful.”

Makael considers this for a moment. Then she realizes that he’s shortened Castiel’s name, too, and she feels … honored. She gives him a small smile. “I’d like that. Please do.”

Dean nods. “Okay. So, Em, yeah, the idea of going into that thing permanently? It’s fucking terrifying. But burning the world? That’s so much worse. I couldn’t live with myself if that happens. And … I can _feel_ him pounding away inside my skull, trying to get _out_.” He lets out a breath. “Right now? I’ve got him. But long term? I don’t know if I can hold him. And Death’s books say that I can’t. That I won’t.”

Everything within Makael rebels at the thought that _this_ is how Dean Winchester will end. It’s suffocating. It’s _horrible_. She leans forward. “You _have_ to tell the others, Dean.”

Dean shakes his head, pushing restlessly to his feet and starting to pace the small room. “I can’t. I … they’ll convince me not to do it. And Em, I have to do it.” There’s desperation in his voice, and he stops pacing, his hands turning into fists, every line of his body strung taut, as if he’s on the very edge of snapping.

Makael gives him a long look, considering. Then she, too, rises to her feet. This is definitely a crisis, and for the Winchesters, crises are acceptable times for hugs. She steps forward and wraps him up tight. She knows he can’t sense it, but she wraps her burnt and broken wings around him, too, wanting to cover him in as much comfort as she can. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly.

After a moment, Dean hugs her back, and she gets the feeling that he’s holding on for dear life.

Minutes later, she steps back. “How are you going to build the box without anyone noticing?” she asks.

Dean draws the back of his hand over his cheeks, brushing away the moisture that’s collected there. “I figure I’ll go to Donna’s cabin. Send Mom out on an errand. Donna has a workshop out back, and it’s wired for electricity. She’s done some metal work and has the right equipment.” He swallows hard and nods to himself.

“All right.” Makael reaches out, takes Dean’s hands in her own. She notices that they’re trembling. “Promise me something, Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Go ahead and build the box, but … then? Wait. I know Cas and Sam and Jack will all be working to find another way to get Michael out of your head anyway, so he doesn’t—”

“—doesn’t just leave blood and bone behind?” says Dean, his voice tight.

“Yeah. That.” God, she hates Michael. She fucking _hates_ him. “And I’ll be looking, too. Give us as long as you can. Please?”

Dean drops his head, shakes it. “I can’t promise that. I … I don’t think I’m gonna last long, M.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. “Just do your best, okay?” She squeezes his hands gently.

He lifts his head, gives her another lopsided smile. “Always,” he says, and squeezes back.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When she’s back in her room a short while later, and snuggled in under the covers, it takes Makael a lot longer to fall back asleep, even though she feels almost as exhausted as she did before. Her mind is racing, spinning in loops and turning back upon itself.  
She reviews over and over the words in Death’s book of Dean Winchester, looking for leeway, for hidden meaning, for an _out_. She replays her conversation with Dean, measures his words, the things he said and the things he didn’t. She tries to recall everything she’s ever heard about Ma’lak boxes, or any other thing that can restrain heavenly beings. She sifts through her knowledge of archangels—which is admittedly limited, given how much time she spent in the Throne Room, simply worshipping God during the earlier years of her existence.

She curses her preoccupation with blindly adoring a God who’s abandoned them all, when she might have been doing something _useful_ that would help now. She’d spent all those millenia with him, and never asked God a damn thing.

Sleep finally does claim her. This time, the last thing that lingers in her consciousness is her final words to Dean before leaving him: _You’re not alone in this. I’m here, and I’m going to do everything I can to help you._

The words were meant to comfort, and when he’d smiled in response, there was, finally, a spark of something other than desolation in his eyes.

But the words were more than comfort. Makael hasn’t made a vow in a very, very long time. But she’s just made a vow to Dean Winchester, and she’s not going to fail him.

**END SCENE.**


End file.
